China to provide $2.5 bn loan to Pak

ISLAMABAD: China will provide USD 2.5 billion in loans to Pakistan to boost the foreign exchange reserves of its “all-weather ally”, a media report said here.
Pakistan is nearly broke with the drying up of foreign cash reserves and mounting external debt.
The country’s USD 8.12 billion reserves, which are below the minimum level that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) prescribe, are sufficient to cover only seven weeks of imports.
Due to this, the WB and the Asian Development Bank are not providing loans for budget financing. “Beijing will place the USD 2.5 billion in deposits with the central bank,” a top Finance Ministry official here told The Express Tribune.
With the anticipated USD 2.5 billion deposits, China’s contribution in this fiscal year alone would surge to USD 4.5 billion, the paper said. PTI